Philosophical Vegan Forum

Can someone explain why in the bible, it describes the reason people die as Adam and Eve having eaten from the tree knowlege? I honestly don't understand why or how a god figure who theoreticly wants us to be grow and be strong could condem us for seeking knowlege. And, if it was a sin to seek knowlege back then, why isn't it a sin to seek it now?

As a parable, it's funny to note that religion wants to punish you for knowing things.

But there are a number of views on this point of metaphysics.

The tree was the tree of knowledge of good and evil. It has been argued that eating from the tree was not wrong, but rather after eating, man obtained the knowledge to distinguish between good and evil, and thus the capacity to sin. Before hand, he was innocent of any sin because he didn't know the difference between good and evil -- he was incapable of sinning because he didn't know what sin was. Thus, shortly after eating from the tree, man was cast out of the garden due to the first sin he committed.

The nature of this first sin is contested, but also probably irrelevant.

So, if Adam had raped and killed Eve, it would've been considered okay because he didn't know it was wrong? Ignorence of the law is not an excuse.

P.S. I like your explanation. I'm just saying how messed up the whole idea sounds.

hhappyduck wrote:So, if Adam had raped and killed Eve, it would've been considered okay because he didn't know it was wrong? Ignorence of the law is not an excuse.

Yes, according to that particular metaphysics. That is, if he did it before he ate from the tree. Theists who subscribe to that view would say it's the same as wild animals doing those things.

The other view, of course, is that man's disobedience to YHWH was the first sin, despite him not knowing better. Not much better.

Or that man did know better, despite not having eaten from the tree yet -- which begs the question: What was the tree for anyway?

Yes. Why would a god put a tree that causes us to die? It also begs the question: why would Adam even eat at all if he can't die? Besides that, why would a god who can see the future, and knows that adam will eat from it to begin with, put that tree there in the first place?

I can only guess, I suspect that it was not a Creator of the Universe, but only a creature calling itself a god.

Similarly, the act of creation in the Bible, god needed seven days, but in my opinion the true Creator can function outside dimensions and would not need even a fraction of a second to do something. The text is not a timeless also, it testifies to the fact that this creature/creatures can be very intelligent, having a lot of knowledge but nothing more, certainly are not the Creator of dimensions and the Universe.